@article{ref1,
title="Fear without context: acute stress modulates the balance of cue-dependent and contextual fear learning",
journal="Psychological science",
year="2019",
author="Simon-Kutscher, Kathrin and Wanke, Nadine and Hiller, Carlo and Schwabe, Lars",
volume="30",
number="8",
pages="1123-1135",
abstract="During a threatening encounter, people can learn to associate the aversive event with a discrete preceding cue or with the context in which the event took place, corresponding to cue-dependent and context-dependent fear conditioning, respectively. Which of these forms of fear learning prevails has critical implications for fear-related psychopathology. We tested here whether acute stress may modulate the balance of cue-dependent and contextual fear learning. Participants (<i>N</i> = 72) underwent a stress or control manipulation 30 min before they completed a fear-learning task in a virtual environment that allowed both cued and contextual fear learning. <br><br>RESULTS showed equally strong cue- and context-dependent fear conditioning in the control group. Stress, however, abolished contextual fear learning, which was directly correlated with the activity of the stress hormone cortisol, and made cue-dependent fear more resistant to extinction. These results are the first to show that stress favors cue-dependent over contextual fear learning.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0956-7976",
doi="10.1177/0956797619852027",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797619852027"
}